


golden day

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Beach Sex, Birthday, Birthday Sex, Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Sappy, Unreliable Narrator, Vacation, happy birthday daisy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: Coulson is big on birthdays, Daisy is trying to be better at relationships.





	golden day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tqpannie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tqpannie/gifts).



“How are you feeling?” Coulson asks, coming out to the porch, drinks in hand.

She had lost track of time for a moment, looking at the waves.

She can’t remember the last time she could just sit down and look at the waves. Her hair is still wet from walking near the water, she’s just wearing a thin sweater over her bikini - she wasn’t well enough to swim, but she played with the waves like a kid for a while. No wonder she lost track of time. Not having to suit up for the next mission immediately or worrying about the next end of the world, she feels out of place, like an out of her body experience.

Coulson sits on the wooden steps right next to her.

Daisy prods at her bandaged arm bit. The pain is all gone, replaced by mild discomfort.

“I feel like I have a bullet hole in my arm,” she tells him.

“You do have a bullet hole in your arm,” Coulson replies. He hands her one of the glasses. “Here, this will help.”

She takes a sip. She wasn’t expecting the wine to be this sweet.

“Mmm, it’s good. Isn’t it? I have no idea.”

“It’s good,” he confirms.

“You could have bought 8-dollar wine and told me it’s this super expensive Chateau This or Chateau That and you’d have impressed me just the same.”

He leans to give her a quick kiss on the lips.

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he says.

He sighs a bit, in a good way, content. 

They stay in a nice silence, while he appreciates the view Daisy has had the luxury to bask in the whole afternoon. She can tell what he’s thinking - all those months in space really makes you value what Earth has to offer, even if it’s just a stretch of lonely beach in a hidden corner of California. She can tell what he’s thinking because she thinks the same. Part of her still doesn’t believe that they ever came back. It’s the same for him, he still wakes up in cold sweat thinking he never left the prison. She still stays awake at night afraid she’ll be back there, if she closes her eyes. They know this about each other now, because they share a bed and they share secrets. Even now, looking at the sea, she’s afraid to close her eyes in case it disappears. It’s such a lovely day and she is so grateful to be here with Coulson.

“How is the chocolate cake going?” she asks, breaking the silence.

“It’s coming along, but it’ll take a bit just yet,” Coulson replies, finishing his wine.

He insisted on this whole thing. “Insisted” is not the right word when he comes to him, no. He gently nudged her to take this break, he somehow managed to rent this place with a private beach, and stocked up on drinks and sweet treats. 

“It’s still amazing I was given the all clear,” Daisy points out, looking at her arm.

“I might have bribed a couple of doctors,” he replies.

He makes it sound very romantic. It amuses Daisy. He’s so unlike everyone she’s ever met and he treats her so differently. A house with private beach, _come on_. Daisy thinks that this is the first birthday in her life she would like to remember for the rest of it.

“You really are big on birthdays, aren’t you?” she teases him, bumping her shoulder against his.

“I’m big on _everything_ ,” he says, in a flirty naughty tone, but it’s also true, he’s very into occasions and romantic gestures, into dates and that stuff, he doesn’t press her, but Daisy can’t help regretting she is not more game for it. Coulson doesn’t seem to notice or mind, probably the latter.

He wraps one arm around her, bringing her closer to his side. Daisy wonders if he is bothered that she doesn’t call him “Phil” or thinks about him as “Phil”, after months together. It just doesn’t feel personal enough to her. Coulson is Coulson. She started loving Coulson, not Phil. It’s hard to switch. Even as they stand here on the steps, snuggled up in the golden sunlight, “Coulson” feels the private name, the one that’s hers.

“Amazing view. How did you get this house?” she asks.

“I know people in California. Someone owed me a favor.”

Daisy has an ugly thought. “ _Please_ tell me we’re not in one of Tony Stark’s houses.”

Coulson chuckles softly against her neck, and presses a kiss to it. “I would never do that to you,” he replies.

He lifts his head, kissing her lips. Daisy holds his cheeks in her hands, opening her mouth and responding passionately, she hopes it comes off as a thank-you for taking the time to organize all that. And so fast. They barely came from their last, very dramatic - hence the hole in her arm - mission two days ago. She had resigned herself to spend her birthday in the medbay in a gurney or something.

“You taste of chocolate,” she comments when they break the kiss, licking her lips.

“A chef has to be tasting the food at all times,” Coulson says.

Daisy takes one of his hands in hers.

“Thank you for doing this, seriously.”

“You deserved a break. I’m happy to help.”

The worst part is that he means it. It makes him happy. All this. Making her happy.

“But whisking me away to a beach house. Baking a cake. The wine… That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

Coulson touches her arm, right above the injury, so carefully.

“Everyone knows you can take care of yourself,” he says. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taken care of.”

Daisy nods, thinking about Miles and how that was what had attracted her to him, she believed he wanted to take care of her. It was all a lie in the end, of course. Coulson has been the first and only one. Even Lincoln was in a place too dark to allow him to think of Daisy, what she needed. Years before he started sharing her bed Coulson was looking out for her, in a way no one else had ever done.

She’s in serious danger of getting sappy over Coulson’s niceness, so she kisses him hard instead.

She wants to leave him breathless, make him feel someone is crazy about him. Maybe that’s the reason she’s with him - apart from the _very obvious_ reason - that she thinks someone should make Coulson feel like he makes her feel. She’s just not sure she’s been very successful.

When she breaks the kiss she grabs the lapels of his shirt. It’s light blue, very vacation-ish, and he wears it pretty loose, a few buttons undone. His scar is exposed, a rare privilege Daisy will always take seriously. She sighs.

“Hey, I’m not doing anything extraordinary here,” Coulson tells her. “What you do every day? That’s extraordinary. _You_ are extraordinary. This is just some wine and a nice view.”

But to her _that_ is extraordinary, and not because she didn’t expect it; it’s exactly what she would expect from him.

“But this you taking care of me, it has to go both ways,” she tells him, very resolute, like she is giving some kind of ultimatum. To herself. “And I know I have been having some trouble committing,” she drops her head a bit.

“You had your reasons,” Coulson says, infuriatingly understanding.

They both have their reasons, similar reasons, even, and it’s probably why they hold back so much - she can feel Coulson does too, acting uncharacteristically shy around her at times. It’s not like he is having to wait for her to catch up or something, she knows exactly how she feels, how much she feels. But Coulson makes her feel like she doesn’t have to do anything to deserve _his feelings_ , and that’s new, and disconcerting, and Daisy is both happy for it and worried she seems like she’s just getting a free ride. 

“No,” she replies. “I want to feel like you know you can count on me, if you need me.”

Coulson nods. “I always need you. And you’ve always taken care of me.”

“I don’t mean as a friend,” Daisy says. She doesn’t mean the compulsive - Andrew said once that was the word for what she did - way she takes care of everybody. She doesn’t even mean in the way in which she takes care of Coulson differently than she does the others, and she always has since meeting him, because he’s always going to be special. She means like Coulson is doing right now. She means as a lover and partner. “I mean as… _us_.”

She bites her bottom lip, afraid that she’s using a word too big, afraid of putting her foot in her mouth, and finally Coulson would realize he’s been tricked and she’s not worth it at all.

“Okay,” he replies, looking still a bit confused at the turn the conversation has taken, but giving her a look of adoration that does a lot to crush the old fears.

“I’m all in, that’s what I meant.”

“Glad to hear that.”

They stare at each other, and it’s clear they don’t know how to follow up.

Daisy chuckles nervously.

“Well, it’s obvious we are _super good_ at talking about our feelings, so let’s quit while we’re ahead.”

And good timing, because again Coulson is looking at her like… - okay, she knows that look, it’s that look that tells her he really wants to kiss her, but he’s wondering if it’s a good or appropriate moment. It’s weird because Daisy can think of a couple of times when he gave her that look years ago, when they weren’t a couple yet, and she always means to ask Coulson about that but he’s too decent and would probably deny having any kind of designs on her prior to this year. She will let her have that, because she can tell it’s important to him.

She tilts her head to one side slowly, signalling that _yes, you can kiss me_ , just like she did the first time he kissed her, when they were still trying to catch a ride back to earth. 

Coulson kisses her thoroughly but very slowly, there’s a sort of “vacation” feel to it, like they have all the time in the world - and for the time being, they do. Daisy can feel the sand on the steps under her feet, and the sun on her cheek, the smell of salt, while she is being kissed. She can taste the preview of her birthday cake on Coulson’s lips, and the expensive wine he bought _for her_. Her face becomes hot with embarrassment, at all these things she has, at how lucky she is. 

He moves to his knees, bending over and grabbing her sweater between his fingers, lifting the fabric and exposing her stomach, taut from too much training, sometimes Daisy misses her older body, there are too many muscles now, too hard, she’s too hard. Coulson kisses her over the navel. His hand keeps stroking her leg up and down.

He moves his mouth to the upper inside of her leg and Daisy knows where this goes, her lips curling, her toes curling too.

“You know this is like - exhibitionism,” she points out.

And normally Daisy would be dead against it, but she’s in a nice haze and she doesn’t mind, the idea almost pleasurable.

“Mmm-uh.”

“And that’s illegal,” she adds.

Probably not, since it’s a private beach, but hey, it would be nice not to be the only one in the relationship with a list of petty crimes on record.

Coulson lifts his head. “I’m a bad boy,” he jokes.

Daisy holds his face in one hand, then brushing her fingers against his cheek, his forehead, touching his hairline.

“No. You’re a very good boy,” she admits.

Too good for her, probably, but that’s not a conversation she wants to have on her birthday. Or ever, as long as Coulson wants her with him.

He smiles in a way that makes her think he’s about to bark softly like an obedient dog. He shakes his head free from her touch and resumes what he was doing. The stairs are quite convenient, they allow him to crawl between Daisy’s legs quite easily. 

He doesn’t have to take off her bikini bottom, he just pushes the clothes to one side and presses his tongue against her. Daisy holds her breath until Coulson is all the way in. Birthday sex, that’s a classic. Not that she is surprised - he did rent a beach house, after all.

“Bit slower,” she says between breaths, grabbing Coulson by the hair and guiding him. She knows he likes that, being told what to do, and Daisy likes it too. “Yeah… just like that.”

She leans back, one hand propping her for balance, the other still with fingers caressing Coulson’s scalp. He doesn’t use his fingers like he normally does when he eats her out, and just his mouth builds up to a nice tension through her body, it’s both shallower and deeper than usual.

Daisy fixes her eyes on the waves, trying to match her breathing with their gentle rolling in and out of the beach. Coulson matches the movements of his tongue to her breathing in kind. It’s perfect, she thinks, shocked at the idea of using that word. 

When she comes she closes her eyes, but she can still hear the ocean.

She loses track of time again. It almost makes her feel guilty, the luxury of being here.

Then Coulson is sitting on the stairs, a couple of steps below her, turning his head to her and smiling, wiping his mouth with his fingers and then licking his fingers and thank god Daisy is already used to his weird combination of innocent and dirty in bed, otherwise she’d have had a heart attack at the image.

He touches her knee, then turns unexpectedly serious.

“I’m still surprised by all this,” he says.

She doesn’t have to ask what “this” is. Everybody is surprised. Daisy is still baffled by the whole thing. Her and Coulson. Weird. But not weirder than having been trapped in a prison light years from Earth, or weirder than any of the other crap in their lives. 

“I’m sorry if I’m still figuring things out,” Coulson adds. 

She frowns; that’s has been kind of her point the whole afternoon. _She_ is the one who doesn’t know how to act.

“What? No. You’re a pro.”

He gives her a faltering smile. “I don’t feel like a pro.”

Daisy snorts. “Could have fooled me.”

It’s good he doesn’t feel offended that easily, that he doesn’t mind Daisy being a bit jealous of his suave behavior. Since they are equals at work as well all of the sudden the lines were blurred, professionally too. She likes knowing where she stands. With Coulson she’s never really known what they are to each other, and it’s even more difficult now. It’s a relief hearing he doesn’t have it all mapped out, either.

“I wasn’t expecting this,” Coulson says, his voice suddenly very charged with emotion, “I wasn’t expecting… you.”

“In a good way?” Daisy asks.

That’s the thing she has been worrying about, ever since Coulson kissed her on that space station. Not that she didn’t want him - oh she wanted him. But that he is somehow settling, even though he is too kind of ever think of her that way. Daisy knows she is not Coulson’s type, because she has been around him long enough to know he does have a type: Daisy is too young, too emotional, too insecure, and too different to him. Maybe he just took what he could, in the way of sex and companionship. She gets that, she was lonely too, for so long, so she wouldn’t begrudge that.

“A very good way,” he tells her. “That’s why I’m still… walking on eggshells.”

“You are?”

“Yes, just in case. I’m still expecting you to wake up one day and look at me and wonder what the hell you’re doing,” Coulson admits.

Daisy opens her eyes very wide.

“But I’m in love with you,” she blurts out. Something she hasn’t even admitted to herself yet.

Coulson smiles, looking touched. 

“Glad to hear that,” he says, pressing a quick, light kiss on her lips. Gone is the taste of chocolate or wine. Daisy smiles at the thought. “Because I feel the same,” he adds. 

They don’t say anything, they just hold each other’s gaze for a moment, both on the same page. The moment feels so important and then, a moment later, a breeze passes and everything is light again, standing here feels like the most natural thing in the world.

Coulson turns his back to her slowly, and he and Daisy go back to watching the sea again.

She wraps her arms around him, pressing her chest comfortably against his back, her fingers laced over his heart, Coulson taking a minute to copy the gesture and covering her hands with his. The sun is beginning to set, but it’s still very light and golden and Californian out here. Soon it will be time for cake. Daisy can’t wait, she’s sure it’s spectacular, of course.

“I think I like that you’re big on birthdays,” she says into the nape of his neck. Coulson agrees wordlessly. “I think I’m going to be big on birthdays as well, from now on.”

“My birthday is next week,” he reminds her.

“I know!” Daisy leans forward, brushing her lips against Coulson’s left ear. “I’m going to buy you cheap wine and supermarket cake,” she tells him.

He chuckles, she can feel the vibrations through his whole body. It reminds her of the sensation of playing with the waves, the ocean lapping against her skin.

“Sounds perfect,” he says.

It will be, Daisy thinks. At least she’ll try. It won’t be as perfect as today, though. But that’s okay, it’s not a competition.


End file.
